The snow piles in dark places are gone.
Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.
The gravel of all shallow places shines.
A white pigeon reels and somersaults.
Frogs plutter and squdge — and frogs beat
the air with a recurring thin
steel sliver of melody.
Crows go in fives and tens ; they march their
black feathers past a blue pool ; they
celebrate an old festival.
A spider is trying his webs, a pink bug sits
on my hand washing his forelegs.
I might ask: Who are these people?
If the oriole calls like last year
when the south wind sings in the oats,
if the leaves climb and climb on a bean pole
saying over a song learnt from the south wind,
if the crickets send up the same old lessons
found when the south wind keeps on coming,
we will get by, we will keep on coming,
we will get by, we will come along,
we will fix our hearts over,
the south wind says so.
A canyon of granite and steel,
A river of grim unrest,
And over the fever and street-dust
Arches the azure of dream.
And fretting along the tumult,
Threading the iron curbs,
Tawdry in tinsel and feather
Drift the daughters of pleasure,
The sad-eyed traders in song,
The makers of joy,
The Columbines of the city
Seeking their ends!
But under the beaded eye-lash,
Under the lip with its rouge,
Under the mask of white
Splashed with geranium-red,
There is strength in the soil;
In the earth there is laughter and youth.
There is solace and hope in the upturned loam.
And lo, I shall plant my soul in it here like a seed!
And forth it shall come to me as a flower of song;
For I know it is good to get back to the earth
That is orderly, placid, all-patient!
It is good to know how quiet
And noncommittal it breathes,
This ample and opulent bosom
That must some day nurse us all!